PART II
Chapter 12 The Rattletrap
The clerk — a young man, visibly nervous and more than a little dazzled — tries to collect himself.
“Madame… monsieur… you are travelling to Labé? Domestic flight… yes… but, eh—” His gaze drops to my belly. “Madame, you are… how far along, please?”
“Far enough to notice, young man, but not so far you need to worry.”
Karim presents the folded doctor’s note like a knight offering a token. The official squints at it, nods, eyes still flicking back to Karim. Near the gate, two women whisper in Susu — the golden-haired foreign woman, pregnant, and the stallion-man beside her. Who are they? What story follows them?
The plane is smaller than I hoped, larger than Karim wished. Its paint flakes, the propellers whine like old sewing machines determined to stitch the air into submission.
“Charming. Perhaps they wind up the engines with a crank behind the wing. Tell me truly, Karim — do you think this beast will fly, or are we in for a short taxi across Guinea?”
“It will fly, Elena. You’ve faced storms and summonings. This is only a machine groaning about its work.”
The full chapter — the rattling climb, Conakry shrinking to tin roofs and coastline, and what settles between sky and earth — is available unabridged on Ream.
© 2026 CYcrds | I.Ph. de Lange
The C.O.M.C. Files 